Abstract

The network enterprise characterizes economic transition and change. Many scholars defend the position that we need to adjust our organizational theories to this new reality. This paper proposes a number of hypotheses on which a theoretical framework for the network enterprise could be based on. To do that, we start by examining the foundations of the traditional enterprise as viewed by the neoclassical, the activity-based and the resource-based theories of the firm, as well as by transaction costs and industrial organization theories. In parallel, we analyze the particularities and different forms of the network enterprise. By confronting the hypotheses on which the theories examined are based with the characteristics of the network enterprise, we find that the former do not provide an adequate basis to model the network enterprise. This brings us to propose a new set of hypotheses on which to base a theory of the network enterprise.

Conner, K. R. (1991). An Historical Comparison of Resource-Based Theory and Five Schools of Thought within Industrial Organization Economics : Do We Have New Theory of the Firm ? Journal of Management. 17:121-154.